The foundation of Turkish theater is linked to a controversial name: Hagop Vartovian.
He
was born as Hagop Gulluyan on August 18, 1830, in Constantinople. We
know little about his first years, except that he went to school from
1846-1848. He debuted as an actor in May 1862, playing with the Oriental
Theater in the last performance of their first season. He later moved
to Smyrna, where he translated his last name into Armenian and turned it
from Gulluyan into
Vartovian
(Turkish
gülli
/Armenian
vartov
“with
rose(s)”). In 1862-1863 he acted and directed the Vaspurakan group,
which played in Armenian, French, Turkish, and Greek. In 1867 he was
back in Constantinople as director of the Asiatic Society group, and
played Macbeth in William Shakespeare’s homonymous play, which marked
the first time that the Bard entered the Western Armenian stage (after a
performance in 1865 in the Mekhitarist school system without female
characters). In 1869 the group was renamed Ottoman Theater, and it would
cement Vartovian’s fame. In the same year, he premiered
Vart and Shoushan,
one of the plays of eighteen-year-old poet Bedros Tourian (1851-1872), who became one of his authors.
The
great fire of Pera (nowadays Beyoglu) in May 1870 engulfed the entire
district. Actress Azniv Hrachia, one of its witnesses, wrote in her
memoirs: “The fire of Pera came suddenly; I cannot describe that
terrible catastrophe, that horrible day as it was. I will just say that
the entire neighborhood of Pera was in flames; the wealthy became poor,
the mothers were left without children, and the children without
mothers. There was not a single family with one or two members missing.
Many families were found asphyxiated in the stone houses as a group. The
fire did not only devour an infinite wealth, but also thousands of
lives. Pera was in flames from fourteen sides, as if the fire was coming
from the sky. Many people were burned in the streets.”
The
fire destroyed all the theaters and decorations of Pera, as well as the
dwellings of many actors and actresses. Only the group of Hagop
Vartovian, which functioned in the neighborhood of Gedikpasha, was able
to continue regular performances during the 1870-1871 season. In the
same year, Vartovian ensured a ten-year permit from the Sultan, with the
support of Prime Minister Ali Pasha, as the only theater allowed to
present performances in Turkish. The group played in Scutari (Uskudar)
in the summer, and it also had performances in Kadikoy and Pera. It had
an eighty-people organization behind it, including actors, singers, and
dancers, but also the auxiliary staff. The famous satirist Hagop
Baronian wrote in a profile of Vartovian: “To say the truth, thanks to
Vartovian’s tireless work our nation today has a theater. Once he
organized the group, he hired translators and started to criticize the
flaws of the nation with foreign plays, like that man who slaps a
stranger and thinks to have stricken the son.”
The
Ottoman Theater continued functioning until its dissolution in 1882.
Vartovian had to sell everything to make a living and maintain his wife
and three children. For a while, he was designated director of the
court’s theater group. However, following the wishes of Sultan Abdul
Hamid, he converted to Islam and adopted the name of Güllü Agop. He
passed away on February 2, 1898, and was buried in the Yahya Efendi
cemetery of Beshiktash.
